Watching your teenager struggle with addiction is never easy. However, the peace and pride you experience when they attend addiction treatment and get sober are unmatched. Sobriety and recovery from addiction are difficult, making that achievement extremely special for you and your teen.
Unfortunately, relapse is a part of many people’s stories. As a result, you may be worried about your teenager suffering from a misstep in their sobriety. Worrying about this is completely normal and, thankfully, there are several ways to prevent relapse in substance abuse recovery.
If your teen is sober and recovering from drug addiction, you need to understand how to help them prevent a relapse from occurring.
The first step you and your family should take is to become educated on addiction. Addiction is a chronic and progressive disease that is known to affect the entire family.
Oftentimes, the effect substance abuse can have on your family causes certain family members to take on enabling roles. If you or one of your family members tends to clean up your teen’s mistakes associated with addiction, you could be enabling them to further their behavior. This is only one example of why it is so important for you and your entire family to become educated on addiction and how it affects your teen and your family as a whole.
One of the best ways to prevent your teen from experiencing a relapse is by getting involved in their recovery. This could mean attending their sobriety anniversary celebrations at their recovery support meetings or attending family counseling.
One of the best ways to participate in your teen’s recovery journey is by getting involved in Structured Family RecoveryⓇ. This type of addiction counseling is intended for the addicted individual and their entire family, making it the perfect way to get involved in your teen’s recovery.
Structured Family RecoveryⓇ provides your family and your teen with the following benefits:
To help your teenager prevent relapse, learning relapse prevention skills and healthy coping mechanisms that you can teach to them is of the utmost importance.
Some helpful relapse prevention skills include:
Additionally, teaching your teen about the “HALT” (hungry, angry, lonely, and tired) concept could prevent them from experiencing a setback in their recovery. HALT is a theory that believes many people’s drug cravings stem from uncomfortable feelings like hunger, anger, loneliness, or tiredness. Because these are common everyday emotions, your teen needs to stay mindful and have an armory of coping mechanisms that they can use when they feel a craving.
You and your teen need to understand that addiction relapse is not an isolated incident. Individuals go through two stages of relapse before they ultimately turn to drugs or alcohol and undergo the third and physical stage of relapsing.
The three stages of addiction relapse include emotional, mental, and physical relapse. Understanding the signs of each stage can help you and your teen prevent addiction relapse from occurring.
The first stage of relapse is emotional. The signs of emotional relapse include:
The second stage of relapse is mental. The signs of mental relapse include:
The third and final stage of relapse is physical. This is the stage where an individual uses drugs or alcohol and breaks their sobriety. If your teen has relapsed, they may need to attend an addiction treatment center or double down on outpatient therapy, counseling, and the attendance of recovery support groups.
Michael Herbert, The Recovery Guide, has more than 30 years of experience working closely with individuals and families dealing with addiction and recovery issues. He is a seasoned Coach and can help you and your family establish long-term goals and access the tools you need for continued abstinence and recovery for the entire family. Get in touch with Michael today at 561-221-7677 to schedule an appointment.
